


I Know You by the Flames Scattered Across Your Nose.

by fearless_seas



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American History RPF
Genre: Emotional, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Memories, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Tags will be updated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-21 23:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10684992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: December of 1782, Thomas Jefferson grieving the recent loss of his wife, arrives in Philadelphia to serve in congress. He soon meets a man who gives only a name: Alexander.





	1. Chapter One | Frozen Streets in Thin Shirts.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jesssan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jesssan/gifts), [sherlollymouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlollymouse/gifts), [lizziealex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizziealex/gifts), [rainconfettis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainconfettis/gifts).



> Historical note, location and timing have been thoroughly researched. Every cites the first recorded meeting of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson as 1790. But what if I told you that both Jefferson and Hamilton served in congress in Philadelphia in 1782, both boarded in the same area and both considered James Madison (who was staying at Jefferson's lodgings) a friend. A most likely meeting between the two went unrecorded during Jefferson's seventy-five day stay in Philadelphia which begs the question; did they really meet? Biographer John Ferling and I believe so.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr @sonofhistory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas Jefferson arrives in Philadelphia with his daughter Patsy.

_December 27th,_ 1782 || 11:00 pm

_____________________

 

           Sleep swam in Thomas Jefferson's eyes and he dragged a hand up to swipe across his eyelids. He rotated his neck, feeling tendons cracks vivaciously in his aching back. The roll of the carriage wheels echoed, bouncing off the brick buildings and floating back to him in waves. He struggled to keep his eyes open and felt his head continuously dipping forward before he snapped his shoulders, waking himself up. Darkness enveloped the city streets of Philadelphia and out the window he caught sight of a woman in a night cap shutting the shudders of an upstairs balcony before blowing out a candle. Thomas blinked again, tapping his head to the side of the walls, his body shifting with every vibration from the cobblestone streets.

              Vision partly blurred, he dug his hand into his waistcoat pocket, pulling out his pocket watch, flipping the silver head open with his fingers. He pursed his lips, it was too dark to see when he glanced down at the object, holding the watch directly in front of his face and squinting: 11:02. The bolt clicked back into place and was stuffed back into his pocket. He extended his long legs out and allowed his shoulders to sink, shadows from taverns caressed the outside of the carriage, so numb with sleep deprivation even the crack of a whip from the driver couldn’t end his body from shutting throughout him (although the corners of his mouth did cringe). 

            _How much longer?_ Thomas wondered and brushed a piece of curling, ginger colored hair behind the shell of his ear. He revolved his tongue in his throat, _thirsty_ , his empty stomach let out a growl, _hungry._ He groaned, straightening and becoming irritated when the strands did not remain behind where he had placed them and fell back into his perception--he was too sleepy to even care. His attention fell towards the seat next to him and the small head lying in his lap. His daughter, Patsy Jefferson’s auburn shaded hair frayed across his legs, in a slumber and her knees, nestled, coiled up into the fetal position against her stomach, gentle breaths moving her chest up and down. A sigh penetrated the air, and he ran a hand over the top of her tiny skull, wrapping a finger around one of her curls; the father ceased this action when she began to stir, eyebrows meeting at the center of her brow before stalling into grace once again.

           He chewed on his lip, twitching his nose from the cold. _So cold and yet no snow?_ His hands were stiff, even inside of his gloves, the cold nipped at the joints. A thin pasty shirt and waistcoat over his arms, shivering in his seat, his coat temporal like a makeshift blanket across Patsy’s shoulders and he suffered from the sacrifice. The carriage jolted, catching on a specific stone, the fabric slipped from his daughter’s neck and he hurried to cover the revealing skin to the frigid air. The hair on his arms standing straight up and Thomas clenched his jaw and the base of his neck jittered. Books in the opposite seat seat across from them, a few on the floor near his feet but he wouldn’t dare move and disturb Patsy’s peace. He wrapped an arm around her waist, tugging her closer to him, studying how shadows from the whale oil street lamps danced on her cheeks.

_We’ll be there soon._

            The carriage wheels grew more quiet and arrived to a halt as the Virginian lifted his temple off of the door, where his breath had cloaking the glass, sitting upright. “Fifth and Market?”, a coarse voice, shaken with illness and wavering in sicken tones called from the front, slightly echoed. Thomas Jefferson did not answer, kicking off from the wall and skimming Patsy’s jowl with his glove. For some reason he nodded, _yes,_  though the driver could not witness his motion.

         He hesitated for a minute until he heard the man step off of the top and onto the streets, bolts and wrenches easing as it toppled on one side from the weight and he shifted. “Patsy?”, he whispered, shaking her shoulder slightly, “we’re here, dear.” She murmured incoherently, eyelashes fluttering across her pale cheeks before they shut again. “Patsy… come on, up.”, he shuddered her again in an another attempt.

         “No… Papa…”, her head slid off of her father’s lap and onto the seating, rubbing her cheek. Thomas gave up, carefully placing her crown down before opening the carriage door; he contemplated grabbing his coat off of his daughter’s covering but tossed the thought away and treaded out onto the icy Philadelphia streets.

         If he was frosted stiff arranged in the carriage idle, it was naught compared to the slick streets under his boots and although there was no wind, the temperature--slightly before zero--caused Jefferson to tug the sleeves of his thin shirt until they came to his knuckles and stiffening his rigid exterior. What a bliss it would of been to of had snow pierce the earth in this very moment; a divergence of mood. He strided towards the rear of the carriage, gliding his fingers across the surface of the ride. The driver had already began to unload the bags out of the back, setting them with an odd delicacy.

         Thomas stepped forward to aide the man in his strain, raising an arm to grab a trunk but the man shrugged him off, blocking him. Thomas faltered, clicking his tongue. “I’ve got it, sir.”, he remarked. Apparently he didn’t because a trunk faltered off the top of the coach, chipping away paint in the corner. Containing his malcontent he trailed the rider as he lugged two of the bags into the inn. _Mary House’s_ inn, the letters swirled elegantly against a verdant backdrop above the sloping roof, that shrouded the wood porch in a shade, two stairs connecting up from the cobblestone. The lights were still in the window, illuminating against the red brick, creating an inferno of flames. It was only a trunk, and four large bags they had brought--the trunk of course, now chipped.

         As the driver disappeared and then re-came, trotting back down the miniature steps and gathering another bag, the previous gone, Thomas lifted the door of the carriage open once again, climbing halfway into the backseat. “Patsy”, he pleaded sharply and nudging on her arm again. Only moans were received back. He rolled his eyes, climbing farther in and grabbing her underneath the arms, lugging her head over his shoulder and her stomach against his chest, lifting her up as you would a small child. She rustled, tensing her legs before relaxing and wrapping them around her father’s stomach, lacing fingers behind his neck; but those too soon grew to be dead weight as she was not even attempting to keep herself up. He shut the carriage door and made his way slowly to the doors of the inn, the corner of his eyes watching to make sure his boots don’t catch. This section of town surprisingly muted at the time and the heavens blinked down with navy orbs, piercing the night in sharp, bright stars that cut into the sky like rough diamonds. 

         Thomas definitely expected Mary House’s inn to be far more busy and to his luck it was practically patent at this time. According to Madison, there was no place better in Philadelphia. Using his free arm, he entered the inn. Mary House was an elderly woman whose daughter, Eliza House, manned the building with the help of her husband. The inn as Jefferson soon discovered consisted to two floors. The first, with wood floors that creaked at the center had to the left a collection of tables with four chairs each around them. Towards the back wall, three longular boards with six stools on either side. In the center, vacant from tables were two thick, jagged wooden posts which held up the eggshell colored ceiling; at the end of the posts was a wide staircase that went up before more stairs sharply jeered to the left. To the right he acknowledged there were sixteen bar seats pushed in neatly to the counter with worn leather covers on the tops and painted gold beads circled them. Farther, near the staircase a large fire flickered and swayed, two carmine seats in front of the fireplace.

           Grateful for the warmth and still holding Patsy in his arms, Thomas shifted her weight from one arm to the other and toppling over to the counter. Besides an older man laying, with optics fastened by one of the chairs at the fire; three men concentrated rather somberly in the corner blinking tiredly and sloshing the clear liquid in their glasses back and forward; a gentleman leaning over his potatoes and flipping the pages of his book; and finally a woman with muscular hands, and vivid rose cheeks twisted a rag inside a glass and setting it onto a shelf with others--there was not one else downstairs, most having retired for the night.

             He huffed, a fiber strand of hair out of his face, “Excuse me?”.

               The woman’s attention immediately thrown to her side, acting as if she were startled, Thomas blinked, arms growing painfully numb. “Mr. Jefferson?”, she replied peeking at Patsy across his shoulder, wiping the once white rag across her hands and folding it onto the counter next to a pitcher of empty beer.

               “Yes, I have a room here?”

             She beckoned, close enough to toss her wrist over the counter and even with his taken hands he was able to give back a feeble extension, “Eliza House, pleasure to officially make your acquaintance, Mr. Jefferson.”

             Already heated by the temperate ventilation in the room, color flooded to the tips of his ears, scorching, nodding in acceptance. Coarse skin, and muscle that spiraled around her thumbs and the meat of her palms rather menacingly, their grip faded and she turned away, pushing open the thigh-high swing panel heading into a backroom that Jefferson merely caught a glance of. A case of keys glittered in a glass case that she opened with a key of her own, grabbing one off the third shelf and holding it out for Thomas to take--which he took and rubbed the pad of his finger over the imprinted number seven.

            Eliza began to make her way around the bar, “Allow me to lead you.” motioning with her chin toward the stairs at the end of the room.

              Thomas closed her off, “No, it is alright I won’t be a bother.”

            She nibbled on the edge of her lip, raw knuckles on her hips, contemplating before accepting. “I’ll at least get you a candle.”

            “Thank you,” he murmured into his daughter’s shoulder when she tried to speak in her sleepless disorientation.

             Shifting the key to his smallest finger, Eliza placed a metal tray with an already lit candle into his grasp, “the stairs lead to the second landing, Mr. Jefferson.” gesturing towards their bags near the door, “I’ll get my husband to bring them to you tomorrow morning”.

          He accepted, thanking her again and heading on his way.

         “And, Mr. Jefferson?”

         He side eyed her, “Yes, Ms. House?”

         “If you want, we still have soup and potatoes--I could heat some if you’d like.”

         The Virginian sighed with relief, his stomach aching and riping in agony, _how long has it been since he last ate?_ He would’ve of eaten earlier had he hadn’t of given the last apple to Patsy a few miles out of town, and several minutes later--unable to ignore the lethargy and no longer able to stay up--she leaned against his shoulders before shutting her eyes.  

                “I’d like that very much.”

 

____________________

 

               Up the stairs and near the center of the corridor was his room with a glittering number seven that glistened against the flicker of the wax candle on the upper midway of the painted door. A brass handle met his grasp and from the faint gloss of the flame he received a glance of his inner room. Three compacted rooms close to one another, one a limited bedroom with thick copper curtains that held back from the window, illuminating the room in shine from the oil lamps down in the street; it had a bed, and a tiny dresser in the bend (Thomas observed there was a patch of faded paint where a mirror used to hang that was now gone). Another room, half larger than the other had a bed more than twice the size with wall etched in a deep maroon color. A desk under the high ceiling made of cherry wood (he suspected) owned a chair and four poster bed frame built for two that sat in between the two walls and small tables on one side of the bed near the window. Both rooms led into the largest gathering, where a couch stood in the core of everything as if it was holding everything together.

             Thomas guided himself to the modest room, placing the candle on the top of the dresser, the lucent rebounding across the ceiling, enlightening the entirety of the room. He gently placed Patsy down on the bed, nestling the back of her head against a cream hued pillow. Revolving his shoulder, he felt blood rushing back into his arm and he allowed a sigh to pass his lips. Kneeling down at the foot of the bed, he tugged off Patsy’s brown leather boots, neatly placing them by the door to the room. He stood, about to exit the room.

              “Papa…”

              Thomas paused, Patsy’s weak voice cutting into the silence that once enveloped the atmosphere. Her eyes were separating, only some what welcoming the light, rolling on her side to face her father. He didn’t say a word, taking her hand in his and managing a half meant smile. Another hand dragged its way to side off her face, cupping her cheek and brushing stray hairs off of her forehead. A howl of wind ripped across the window pane, but neither looked to inspect.

             “I’m cold, Papa”, no blaze lit even though there was a fireplace in the main room, Thomas could understand, even he caught himself still shivering as the wintry blast fluffed right under the cracks at the edges of the icy glass. She lifted her feet and he aided in helping her body slip beneath the sheets.

               Rubbing his finger underneath her eye, before she began to fasten her orbs, “Are you hungry? Would you like something?”.

           She was already asleep before the last word even came out. He rose an eyebrow, her chest serenely drifting up and down with her subtle breaths. The candle’s wild flicker wavered across the walls. Thomas waited, hoisting himself up on his ankles at Patsy’s weakening grip on his fingers as she shot into obscurity. The blend of the room blended, shining across her cranium, fraying across her pillow in its carrot tinctures at many strands and locks. Chocolate eyes now shut, his own streamed down her sharp chin, precise forehead and cutting fuchsia lips--all features of her own father. That was not it, no matter how much he willed to disregard her rounded chin, her tendency to grow into temper or the ginger filaments that seeped across her hair sometimes when she laughed--Thomas Jefferson couldn’t ignore his wife.

          **Head** : _Why do you weep over those who have passed?_

          **Heart** : _We weep not for those who have passed._

          **Head** : _Then why weep at all?_

        **Heart:** _They weep for half their soul which is buried in the soil; they weep for the lost half of a whole they cannot live to ever receive back._

           **Head** : _‘tis a stupid thing, to give oneself up for another without knowing whether they’ll be here forever more._

           **Heart** : _It’s what you do for love. The ability to cure the worst type of wounds, wounds that bleed on the inside._

Thomas shook his head, hand faltering from Patsy’s visage and caressing softly over her hair. Pieces of Martha in those darker strands he held between his grasp, twisting around his fingers. He could almost swear he was in his bed at Monticello, Martha next to him with her arms carefully placed around his waist and his hold on her hips; drinking in the scent on her neck and growing more addicted each day to to feel of her velvety skin rubbing against his own. There was nothing more awful in the crumbling, romantic world than losing someone he loved, knowing he’ll never feel her lips on his teeth and must learn to grow sober not having her as his favorite drink. There was a hole in his heart in the shape of her searing silhouette, every time he beamed her beauty glowing in the darkness. She was still like ash on his fingertips, and at the edges of his brain, the centers of what remains of him. Somehow Martha was in the sun, and the wind in every breath of air that he breathed; every mournful tune plinked across a bow or keys was a tone of her song. He’d see her in the clouds as they drained, dripping from the heavens sweet, singing her name; she always loved the rain.

         Thomas’s lip quivered and teeth etched to cremate themselves in the flesh of his lower lip to stop the quivering. Hands shaking he lifted them off of Patsy’s tiny head, rising the covers up to her chin, lifting off his ankles and dragging a finger underneath his eyelid. The stars practically invisible in that navy sky, he remembered he had cried much more than he pondered he would of, almost mediating if love was a price--oh, how he payed. He grinded his eyelids, arms heavy from sleep and back exasperated, stiff from the carriage. Quietly, leaving the candle on the dresser, he rolled up his sleeves flipping a button to push them up to his elbows. He exited Patsy’s temporary room, tossing one last reconnaissance and inclining against the door frame, tugging the door closed and hearing the lock click into place.

              _She’ll be fine_ , anxiety brewed in the pit of his gut, swimming disconcertingly.

          He shut the door to their room, throwing the key into his pocket where it jingled against a few coins. Gathering himself in calming respirations and flickering away a few stray tears lingering in his eyelids; he made his way down to the ground floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:
> 
> \- Thomas Jefferson biographer Jon Meacham says Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia a few days after Christmas at night in December of 1782. I took a gander on the date because "a few" means either the 27th of December or the 28th.   
> \- Thomas Jefferson owned a silver pocket watch hence the reason for the watch.   
> \- By this time, Jefferson's hair was starting to turn sandy.   
> \- Jefferson had left his two youngest daughters in Virginia with his sister-in-law and took Patsy with him.   
> \- Jefferson at this time was supposed to be traveling to France on the ship Romulus but it became frozen at sea and the Continental Congress sent him to Philadelphia.   
> \- After much research, I found out that Jefferson boarded in the same inn as James Madison which was fifth and Market street near the east corner at Mary House's inn. Mary House's daughter, Eliza ran the inn and grew close to Jefferson in this many, many following stays in the city. Jefferson would go on to mark the inn as an important land mark to visit for future tourists in Philadelphia.   
> \- By this time, it had only been several months since the death of Jefferson's wife, Martha to whom he was devastated when she passed. He fainted, burnt everything of hers, remained in his room for a month, never recovered and contemplated suicide.


	2. Chapter Two | Hands on Thighs and Possible Lies.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas Jefferson meets Alexander.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that you can always find me on Tumblr @sonofhistory if you have any questions!

_December 28th,_ 1782 || 12:03 am

____________________

             On the first floor, Eliza House had seated herself at the end of the bar near the fire, drinking a short glass of water, resting her head on the back of her hand and leaning against the hold with exhaustion. The elder man who had been sleeping by the fire was still asleep, mouth open and Thomas clicked his tongue at the sight. The three men staring into their clear glasses were gone, leaving only chairs left unpunished that Ms. Eliza was reluctant to rise and organize. Running his hand along with railing of the stairs, he planted onto the last stair, passing a lingering glance to the table where that gentleman he had seen before still sat; a book open flat behind a bowl of bisque soup and a few potatoes. On the back of the chair next to him, his emerald coat with a saffron inside was draped over the back. The sleeves of his cream shirt puffed up to his elbows, fair skin reaching across his body, down across his fingers when he reached to turn the page.

             The fire burning fervently in the corner seemed to consume the room in an inferno, twisting down his back was shimmering scarlet hair that smolders as passionately as the flames licking their wounds in the corner. Cravat undone, it now rested on the base of his neck, ends gently brushing the upper chest. One hand propped his head up, and his legs were tangled underneath the chair, buckled shoes jealous of how dim they seemed compared to his hair. White leading up from bony ankles to underlying of his shapely knees before a pair of breeches tightened perfectly to fit across his hips and slender waist. Barely peaking across his silhouette were tiny flickers of freckles, stretching across his entire visage; gathered essentially on his nose, they faded off towards his chin and the steep of his forehead.

                 Thomas weaved himself away, their bags were still in the corner near the door, and, still mourning his chipped trunk, The Southerner lugged his mirrored, silver pocket watch out of his waistcoat folding, glimpsing again at the time: _12:06 am_. He nibbled at his inner lip, stealing a seat at the bar (though there was not another being there) somewhat immediate to the staircase. Eliza, rising a blonde eyebrow, lifted from her seat rather indolently, seizing for a platter near a bottle of amber whiskey and setting it in front of her guest. The potatoes, with lines of steam fading into the air rolled sadly untouched on the plate while the soup, chilling, sloshed unmoved. He gandered at the meal, tipping his head.

              “Excuse me?”, he called, leaning forward.

            Eliza scratched her shoulder, “Yes, Mr. Jefferson?”.

            “Was Mr. Madison in here this evening?”, eagerness cloaking him. 

            Not even pausing to recollect, “Mr. Madison was here this evening, speaking with that gentleman over there”, she pointed over the bar and Thomas rotated in his chair to follow in pursuit. It was the very same man he suspected, slanting, leafing over a book and his food. The man did not glance over at their scrutiny, twisting his neck to the side, and shutting his eyes from the stiffness of being seating for so very extended at the vacant wooden table, running fingers through his hair and narrowing his eyebrows as if the book was his challenger, dragging up a hand to rub his forehead in his defeat.

              Thomas turned back, meeting Eliza’s reflective optics in conversation, “Do you know who he is?”, _Madison never mentioned another man he was visiting in their correspondence._

              Eliza shook her head, “Apologies, I do not know. Mr. Madison and him meet often.”

               “Thank you.” he forestalled before catching her right as she was to exit the room, “You wouldn’t happen to know how long ago Madison retired?”, _perhaps he was still awake._

                “Nine thirty or so, sir”, no chance he was still awake now. The conversation ended cordially on this tone, “Goodnight, Mr. Jefferson.”

            “Goodnight, Ms. House.”

         Passing the room, she shut the door behind her, the room growing darker with the loss of another candle. Thomas let out another sigh, poking at a potato with the prongs of his fork and rolling it from one pastern of the plate to the other. Suddenly, not even sure why, he was hungry no longer. Decently, he was reminded that he should be on his way to France this very minute. Bitter expressions filled his core. He lost Martha in the fall, and lost hope of escape from her shadow in the winter; when will the spring open up it’s arms? His stomach churned discerned and seeping, nearly forsaken because he’d left a piece of himself in everything he loved; everything he’d loved he lost. Some days he felt it all at once, some days nothing at all.

            He didn’t know what was worse, drowning beneath the waves or dying from thirst. He lowered his crown, ripples reverberating in a miniature sea in his glass, the crystal obsidian liquid like a reflection of the night sky. The pooling charcoal succulent formed little stars in that little sky. There once was a shooting star in life, an anonymity so rare and when she smiled he felt ashamed he could stare and not become blind, he had blinked and in a minute ten years had flown by; to others not a sign that she had ever even been there. The familiar agony of remorse, submerged Thomas past his throat; it was a lot easier to be angry than to feel hurt, he recognized. With his fingertips he shoved the glass across the counter, nails coming down to scrape across the surface when the water nearly tipped over onto the floor of the tavern. He shivered, combusting and casting a lost glaze into the fire in the corner, dancing in the hern.

_“Please, Tom, don’t cry, please…”, there were fingers on his cheek, a thumb rubbing across his cheekbone, swiping away the tears not even regarding her own that leaked down her cheeks through a broken grin._

_He gripped her palm, lacing their fingers, “Anything for you.”, he still shed tears that she wiped off his face even though she did not mention another word._

_“Tom, the children need you... They will need you.”, she whispered, and the afternoon sun cut across her bed, ending just at her neck, causing her to glow in the shaded eclipse of the room. Her voice fading off at the curl of each sentence, her body quivering, sweat leaking across her sickly, ghosting skin._

_Crumpling, his head inclined, forehead pressing against her stomach, sobs walling in his throat, struggling to keep them contained, sinking her scent in as he closed his eyes, lying against her caving abdomen. If he could never breath again, woke to no air, he’d take one last sip, let it warm his lungs, inhale so deeply his chest becomes too full, she was a scent so divine, the inside of his lungs were painted in a most glorious gold. Collapsing into her arms just as he wished it could always be. A gentle hand landed on his head, delicate digits threading through his messy hair, combing it in comfort._

_Voice clouded in misery, wavering in uncertainty, “but I need you-”_

_“I love you, Thomas.”_

_“Patty, no, please-”_

_“I love you, Mr. Jefferson.”_

_He swallowed, lip tremoring and his stomach twisted coming up to rest his head on her chest, “I love you, Mrs. Jefferson.”_

_The pad of her thumb came to swipe across his eyebrow, resting her extension on his chin, “Patsy looks just like you,” Thomas’s brows joined at the center with a wrinkle, “those lost, expressive eyes,” the fingers slid down to carve around his chin, “your sharp Scottish chin.”, she tapped the dimple on his jaw._

_Copying her movements, guiding his large hands towards her visage, “Polly has your nose, Patty.”, tapping against the bridge and slithering it’s way descending and waving around the curves of her lips, “firm, beautiful lips.”_

_Patty giggled, before it faded just as fast as it came, “be careful, you might cut yourself.” She launched his skull up to repose in the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent repeatedly in the ecstasy, nestling his nose behind her ear, discovering fervor. Turning her head to gaze into those lurid cinnamon eyes she had just spoken about, “I’m tired…”, she respired almost lost._

_Thomas hoisted his head, his eyes swollen, coral and sorrow was his only universe, “Just a little longer.”, his arms flew to her hips, throwing a leg over her body and tugging her so close he could feel her tarnishing heartbeat in the shelter, chaos tearing like a wildfire in the atmosphere._

_Their eyes met, long eyelashes fluttering, their fingers crossed like fate, “we’re always going to request a little longer.”, pitch barely above a scarce divulgence and another grip heightened to cradle his chin, feeling the vibrations of his teeth. “Allow me to witness the heart in your eyes, Tom," she always said that. This brought a smile to his cheeks, and he rubbed cheek against her hand. “There it is, I can see it glowing in there,” the corners of her eyes softened, letting a hand drop to the side in between the circle their bodies both formed. “If only you could see how beautiful it is, Tom…”, her brace pearled from his chin and Thomas caught it mid-air around the wrist, half shut, eyelids fading, “...how truly beautiful…”_

_The lacing relinquished, eyes shut loosely in his arms, “...Patty?”_

         That was when the universe fell from the sky.

         Thomas’s torso burned with a certain relishing passion that cloaked his skin. He flung the plate adjacent, forcing a shaking hand up to snatch his strands, scrapping against his scalp and loosening a few ginger hairs that tumbled in obverse of his vision. He wondered if that heart in his eyes still beat. He hadn’t noticed till now that there was nobody sitting by the chimney anymore, believing he was most likely alone.

           Something slammed down on the counter to his right. Jumping, he shot his sentiment over to the sound, shot by the fact that were was another being left downstairs. Even sitting down, Thomas still from his height had to regard down to see the gentleman or to meet his face with his own. “Has Ms. House turned in for the night?”

           Thomas was too shot to move. Fire in tiny ashes flurried across the man's cheeks and his eyes glowed with perfection, rooting bags like soot clinging to his skin, healthily and attractively slender, the freckles on his arms discontinued at his ashen extremity. His shamrock coat was underneath one arm, bent and like he was afraid for a tiara to spill off, his chin was tipped up, breast protruding, shoulders straight and smooth, back in a perfect semblance. Tawny eyelashes covering to curtain over his glassy eyes, seeming like clear sea grass of mixing cerulean, teal and sapphire hues holding all the clouds from the heavens. His skin sallow like a rose, like a horizon at the accumulation in the welkin. Determination, Ambition shone radiantly like a large message around his temples, puffing off in fumes. Even with fibers tied back, stray curls stuck to his forehead, un-tamely swirling around to frame his features like a wildfire. Sharp nose, serrated like a knife, prominent in an odd direction. One edge of his aperture was constantly pursed as if a constant kept smirk. Youthful aura without a wrinkle on his surface or a scar slicing across his dress. Body constantly bent like a delicate snapping-dragon flower, with noticeable ruby etching and jaded bruises wrapped around his knuckles.

         For some reason, Thomas was lost, “I-" he brought a sleeve to wipe away any proof from underneath his eyelids, clearing his gullet, “I-yes, she did.”

          The smirk becoming more visible, the man set his coat down next to the shut black book he'd been previously reading and took a stool one seat down from Thomas, folding his hands in front of him, one dominant of the other. A silent postulation sequenced itself. Switching seats, the man slid to the seat in between the two, Thomas, attempting to keep his contemplation off of him.

          “You know James Madison?”, thrust into consultation.

          Managing a meek simper, Thomas turned his elbow, and his knees grew closer to the unidentified, “He is a good friend, he to I”, an inching regard. “If you don’t mind me asking, how have you two become acquainted?”

           Rising a faded brow, “leave it to Mr. Madison to fill you in.”

          Shrugging, Thomas twisting away, still caught and light headed, even more so now by the secrecy. So bordering, their knees knocked together, he fastened his thighs away from the tap and perceived a swelter surging to the tips of his ears. The man must of noticed his influence because he veered increasingly closer. The second time their knees brushed, neither of each moved them away. Maybe it was the interaction or the fire searing the room, but the torridity generated him to bring a curled finger up to loosen his collar, sticky on his neck.

         “What am I to call you?”, Thomas speculated, planting his projection on the bar in between them.

         He inclined his chin to a bow, “for the night, perhaps... Alexander.”

        Biting his innermost lip, Jefferson cocked his head, “How do I know that ‘tis your real name, Alexander?”

           Alexander flicked his narrow wrist rather nonchalantly, keeping one hand on his coat and book as if he thought someone were going to steal them. “You don’t, and that should be the most fascinating thing.” The air revolved, not knowing what had just manifested itself. 

        Thomas always willed the answer. “Am I to suppose my own alias, as well then?”, teasing and Alexander clicked his tongue, rolling those glass eyes with amusement.

             “Not when I already know who you are, Mr. Jefferson; who doesn’t?’, biting flesh, “Especially when Madison speaks of you go very often.”

           The crave to sleep left his entity, wide awake now, “Oh, so he does?”, shaking his stellar, looking down concealing beguilement. Thomas surveying at their knees, discovering how utterly connected they were, nearly hip to hip. Perhaps he was too tired to care, or too delusional to predict where this was headed.

          “Does anyone join you in Philadelphia?”

           “My daughter Patsy,” his shoulders sunk, “I-we have two separate rooms in our boarding.”, words slipping past his tongue and colliding into reality.

         “I have a son, myself--not the best dancer.”, fondly remarking, lips spread and his teeth revealed themselves.

         Thomas acknowledged Alexander looked like a child himself, yet already he had a son. He considered of his own son, how frail he’d been, much more humble than the others. Passed so fast, they never got the chance to name him. Thomas would've named him Peter, even though the startling, half-lidded infant looked so much his own father. Peter Jefferson had gray eyes for those fourteen days, Thomas never understood where that tincture came from.

         “Mr. Jefferson--”

         “Thomas.”

          Alexander blinked slowly, stalling in acceptance, “Thomas,” allowing the new name to flavor his taste buds. Passion seemed to dance in their surroundings, as if they saw the world in a way no one else had ever. Just out the corner of his eyes, his stomach began to cave in itself, mind drawing a blank, his throat tightening up like a coiled rope choking his airways and lungs, suffocating his neck. For some reason he wished to wet their lips, tantalizing their tongue, elevating their heart rate, making his veins hum. Swallow him down, intoxicate and sensations light as a bird with his presence, imbibe his existence. The Virginian yearned to get to very dizzy, stumble drunk on that man's addicting touch. 

          There was a hand on Thomas’s thigh now, he jumped slightly, the fingers shifting as if they were ripping holes through his skin, he shuddered, leaning in closer and sensing the top of Alexander’s head brush the undercut on his chin, this clean shaven cheek rubbing against the dip of his neck. Cranium fitting perfectly into the L shape of his jaw. The reticence impregnated once again, and his heart fluttered like a thousand butterflies took flight in his chest. The two felt each other’s breath on their skin, rising bumps to the surface and his gut twisted viciously. The pale hand began it’s ascend, the pads of his fingers growing closer to his inner thigh, pressuring, squeezing, switching to that sensitive interaction. Thomas didn’t stop him, or tug him off or yell at him to leave; he instead put a sturdy hold on the back of Alexander’s chair to steady himself and cupping his shoulder around the other’s nape. That hand didn’t discontinue there, closer and nearer like a brave drumbeat.

          The taller man brought his mouth close enough that his warm breath on the shell of the past stranger's ear. “Is this alright?”, voice, a gentle gust, the bridge of his nose buried in scarlet. 

          Returning the engagement, Alexander lifted his own lips as high as he could, “I should be the one asking”, lips brushed against Thomas’s ear and he fell into the embrace, parting his mouth, eyes rolling to a lip bite. “Thomas, is this alright?”, he teased, smirking familiarly and zipping his hand up to brush down from his hips over his crotch. Expiration sucked out of his lungs, Thomas sloped forward, hair falling in his eyes, blinding him and he bit down hard on his lip, eyes squeezed tight. The hand shifted, running up and down the length tucked in his breeches. “I’ll ask again,”a shiver rolled down the column of his spine at this demand, “is, this, alright?”.

          Thomas nodded his head reminiscently and parted his site again, meeting Alexander’s violent eyes where now the calm sea glass had parted and storms took their place in that violet. His freckles seemed to rekindle golden, and the Virginian incremented a palm to snatch a section of Alexander’s ardent and ecstaticized locks, threading his fingers through it and pulling slightly, resting his forehead on his shoulder as the hand in between his legs was causing him the need to squeeze his legs together. He swallowed deeply, Adams apple bobbing in the column of his throat, “it’s alright--” he paused, “--Alexander”. A reply which noticeably created a vehement of widened perception. 

           Thomas breathed roughly, the chimney in the downstairs provoking him to sweat and the caress over his groin, him to melt. He winced, choking on a groan and tugging fiercely on Alexander’s hair, who moaned into the sharp pain and clenched down hard on his member in return.

          “You said you had a room?”, Alexander panted, tress tickling the side of Thomas’s neck and he chided in the sensitive touch. 

          A mere mutter through clenched teeth, “Second flood, seventh room”.

          The hand left his leg and Thomas unintentionally growled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:
> 
> \- At this time, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson both considered James Madison a friend.  
> \- Alexander Hamilton wore a shit ton of green coats with yellow collars.  
> \- Patsy Jefferson looked nearly identical to her father, while Polly was a near look a like to her mother.  
> \- Patsy Jefferson does have all those features from her father that I identified, haha.  
> \- Thomas Jefferson called his wife "Patty".  
> \- Martha Jefferson gave birth to two boys of her seven children, one before her marriage to Thomas and one during in 1777--the boy lived only fourteen days and if they gave him a name, it went unrecorded.  
> \- "Not the best dancer" is a mention to a letter Alexander Hamilton wrote someone when Philip Hamilton was only seven months old, the letter stated Philip thus far was a terrible dancer, laughed too much but was handsome. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are highly appreciated. Thank you so much for reading! Come back next Thursday for the next update! Thank you! Don't be shy and hit me up on tumblr @sonofhistory !


	3. Chapter Three | Salty Skin and Ankles Around Waists.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson have some fun ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that you can always find me on Tumblr @sonofhistory if you have any questions!

_December 28th,_ 1782 || 12:57 am

 ____________________

 

          They both stumbled through the darkness on the second landing. Knowing this was wrong, his heart charring in his chest, fires lighting infernos in the others gaze and the irresistible tease that impregnating his face. His stomach twisting, swirling in the deep. _This was all wrong,_ if this was all wrong; then why did he carry on? Why did he lead Alexander to his room with a palm on the small of his back and arousal inflamed across his hips. They got to the door, searching in his pocket for the key, shaking hands fumbling unable to grasp any objects. Coming up behind him and wrapping his arms around the taller one's waist, Alexander dipped his hand into the pocket brushing their fingers together, stiffening and pulled out the key.

          “Not even my pocket and I found it quicker than you,” Alexander dangling the key and Thomas snatched it from the air, pursing his lips. A few moments struggle as he blindly felt for the lock with his hold on the outer door, not a candle in reach. The grooves of the insert became distinct and he slipped the key into the lock. Thomas let out a shiver and Alexander’s extremity ran along his abdomen, piercing and stopping at the bone of his hips.

          As soon as the door opened, fingers glided across his bare arm, twisting his wrist painfully. He winced slightly as his back made contact with the wall to the right, his skull with a candle extension. “Hey-”

          He was immediately cut off by fingers lacing his own, pressing them above his head, the one of his free hands landed on Alexander’s chest and he soon pushed his body towards his. Alexander’s other appendage found its way once again diving towards his inner thigh where it once resided and Thomas groaned. Through the obscurity, those freckles still glowed, guiding him directions and igniting across that man’s cheeks. If Thomas Jefferson was scared of being burnt by those flames, he was about to catch fire as those he was ripped down and his nose caught contact. Though so short, he had trust a knee in between Thomas’s legs, the top rubbing against the taller’s crotch and his mouth became dry.

          His neck yanked inferior, full lips collided with the flesh of his neck, and he tossed his head back leaning into the interaction. Virginia had produced many heats: thick pre-autumn heats of September that suffocate him to drain, the heavy June heats where water clings in the sun’s rays, or sometimes the wet frizzy warmth of April when rain pours heavily from the clouds and the drops falling on his skin. This was nothing as he had ever experienced, in Philadelphia in the dead of winter with the leaves picked and frosted off the limbs of the trees and ponds numbingly frozen like cancer spreading from edge to edge. Those soft lips surrounding sharp nips of teeth on his throat above his pulse, they kept grazing his veins and the oxygen flew straight to his brain.

          A surge of energy and Thomas clenched his fists around Alexander’s thighs, tugging him closer and with teeth still on his neck and his hands swimming all through his hair he lifted up the shorter one. To match there were his ankles tangled around his waist as the kisses sucking into his skin, flurrying a line across the kick of his jaw bone ending right as they touched the corner of his mouth and Thomas parted his lips, eyes already shut.

          Resting his forehead against Thomas’s shoulder bone he breathed heavily, “I suppose you have a bedroom?”

          The Virginian’s vision parted, _say not a word more,_ he meant to say but he was to tired to formulate words.

          Stumbling once again through the darkness, admiring the whole way there how Alexander swayed his hips as he walked and how he passed a lighthearted smile over his shoulder before landing into Thomas’s room to the left. Striding in the shadow of his grace, lighting a pathway in the inky atmosphere. His bed so far untouched and their loosened red hair sparking and leaving a trail of ashes before they suffocated in the pillow when he leaned on his back across the sheets, widening his legs and lifting his chin. Freezing at the doorstep, Thomas blinked miserably at the noticeable bulge in their breeches and felt his own throb in return.

          That smirk penetrated again, permeating the eclipse in a flicker of pastel, “You can’t stand there all night, Thomas”, and the Southerner felt his ears burn, flaring down to the blush of his cheekbones.

          At that he crossed the room, hurriedly leaving the door way, shutting the door behind him and keeping his site on Alexander's seductive posing. Gliding to the bed he careened over him and in his petite frame scooting back towards the bed post and Thomas crawled up, shifting his knees and hovering above him, planting a hand on either side of his chest. During the pause, in that moment, he noticed the moon’s glow slicking the floors of the rooms. A breathtaking explosion of light that completely transformed all those tiny freckles dotting his counter’s sheath, instead flecks of the atmosphere glowed across his cheeks, collecting the moonlight. The sea carried his dreams and like fire to the flood Alexander’s eyes over flowed with waves, gleaming out his eyelids, slashing across his cheeks and claiming the flames. He should be out there dancing in the waves, instead of lying on the sand. He saw that this man had built a castle away from his fears and now lived lavishly not able to feel a thing.

           Impatient from all the staring perhaps, the once stranger’s figure twisted up, grabbing a fist full of his collar and slamming his face down to meet his lips. It was messy at first and there was panic in both his head _and_ his heart. An intelligent head but a damned stupid heart. Soft and electric souls, he hadn’t apperceived since Martha and she had fit her hands perfectly around the grooves of his heart, she had planted a garden inside that empty room; the roses were all in decay now and the daisy chains melted to smoldering embers and he knew that every time his chest ached.

 **Head:** _Everyone you love has died. Who can be next, shall we speculate? The wisest men don’t base their lives off of one beating in their chest._

 **Heart** : _The heart has many pieces, and he gave one to each._

 **Head** : _It shan’t be long until there is nothing left. He is so desperate for love he is finding it in the soul of a boy who is still in mourning of someone else._

 **Heart** _: Someone the boy once loved?_

 **Head** : _Another he loved so much there isn’t any part of his heart left. He gave it all to them._

 **Heart** : _Two men both in mourning can enjoy each other’s company._

 **Head** : _Not when one can only think of another who is gone._

          Alexander’s lips spilled across his mouth, keeping a fist bunching in his breast, eyes still fastened and a cold rush of air seeped with his skin every button that their fervent fingers undid, closer and closer to his waist and his now untucked shirt. Thomas plucked the green ribbon from their hair, shifty little fingers working themselves at Alexander’s scalp, tugging and he kept flinching from underneath his fingertips, bringing their tongues deeper and deeper into the kiss. Echoing like a hall, Alexander’s erratic moaning brimmed his mouth in a glorious taste. Thomas groaned as those gasping lips came down from his own and his closed optics to tie back against that stream, scattering down to his collar bone, throwing his head back and the man underneath him began to buck his hips up, growling as he slipped a hand underneath his shirt, frigid fingers making contact with his warm stomach and running across his chest.

           The shorter man pushed, causing Thomas to plunge onto his back and Alexander clambered up from the base of his body. Giving a menacing grin with pale skinned hand that toiled like porcelain, tugging off his buckled shoes and tossing them beside the bed on the floor, crawling up and floating over the Virginian's blushing cheeks. Alexander scarlet smile dipped, planting on the top of where his waist met the undercoat of his breeches, his stomach retching, wrapped up in laughter as the bundles of comfort gleaned a trail up his stomach, coming to the center of his chest. Thomas reached a hand up, taking the side of Alexander’s face in his palm and cradling it with delicacy in his touch. So entranced by the large blue orbs that widened like moons with eyelashes fluttering like the night sky against his cheeks and stars that stretched across the entirety of his visage.

            “The moon lives inside your eyes tonight,” Thomas thumbed underneath his eyelid, across those heavy bags from sleepless nights, “and your freckles make the most incredible stars.”

          Pausing a moment to recollect, Alexander blinked, sitting up on his thighs, wrapping his legs around Thomas’s back. He cradled the man's face on both sides leading him into such a kiss that the Southerner was forced to wrap his fists around the back of his shirt, wrinkling it. Alexander nipped at his top lip, letting out a tiny giggle and raising his lower body to where they both collided like feral waves, crashing as he rolled his hips back and forth on his crotch. In the tiny period of time he had undressed his sorrow, discoloring the pain and melting it like snow. There was only only disguise, taking him as he became more naked.

           Shivering, a bitter ripple crescendoed down his spine and his hair cascaded down his posterior. Thomas had freckles too, he had **many** of them that shrouded his face, his arms, his back, his chest, his legs. _“You could be the entire night sky, if you wanted”,_ Martha always drew the dots on his back to form constellations with a extending nail, blazing a trail home using a north star that lies at the base of his neck. Brilliance leaked out of Alexander’s eyelids and sweeped his tips through his strands, with blind eyes not looking but concentrating instead on biting a bruise at the side of his neck as he dragged Thomas’s thin white shirt completely off his shoulders and dropped it off the bed onto the floor. Following pursuit, Alexander’s shirt soon joined the other articles of clothing on the wooden ground.

          Alexander had already had his shoes off and worked his way again sliding from his hips to a hand up and down Thomas’s member, still tucked in his breeches. The Virginian was busy guiding his own touch across Alexander’s smooth ribs, coming back to back and shuffling his fingertips across his body.

          Alexander muted, parting, breathing into their neck drastically, “is this alright?”

          It was a mutual recess, to breathe and to sign, strewing his head back, their noses brushing and getting lost again in that face he had once before, “Always.”

          Thomas let out a whine as those frozen finger lapsed beneath his waistband and wrapped around his shaft, another arm coming to tug his breeches down to his ankles. Thomas shuddered, nails scraping down hard on the soft, fair skin of Alexander’s shoulder and he rested his forehead against their shoulder as his back arched. A brush slid from his hips and across his thigh, landing and staying at his knee, holding him down.

          “Thomas, you simply must stop moving”, he requested and a convulsing exhale followed in reply.

          His palms were so full on intention, every brush of his palms like a pen on paper writing tales and legends in the margins and folds of his being. Squirming when Alexander spit into his cupped palm, coming to run up and down. Skipping down from Thomas’s neck, the man flickered a tongue across the tip, numbing his loneliness with sensuality, falling for the way his hands felt not only on his mind but on his body, grip tightening things that he had trouble understanding. Ghosts, shadows and phantoms did not haunt him like his memories did. Haunting him every time he threatened to close his eyes to the point where he sat up at night, glaring at the empty spot on the bed and fixating on the trembling of his wrists, the quivering of his feet and the frightened glare in his lungs. His heart wrenching in fear because he didn’t know if he’d ever make sense to another human being ever again. He fell years ago so hopelessly and endlessly deep, blood dancing tunes when she laughed or breathed across his skin.

          Alexander was not Martha. Martha had auburn hair that straightened down her back, just below where the S figure of her spine collided. Her eyes were the darkest blue, so inky they could almost be mistaken for black, molding into pupils. Somehow _she_ was so close to him--to this _boy_ \--that he could almost imagine her delicate hands on his arm or her lips on his neck begging him to set down his pen and head to bed; he always obeyed. He carried her dust on his fingertips and at the edges of his brain; in the center of what he remained.

          Arching his spine, he let a moan trickle pass his lips like honey and Alexander, obviously pleased at the sound lowered his mouth, becoming level and a smirk transformed his visage before his sultry expirations wrapped around his shaft, slower at first before now moving up and down, not even concentrating on the swirl of his tongue, keeping his consideration observing Thomas’s facial expressions who was nipping at his own bottom lip with the shear strength of his bone against his own flesh. Hot movements in an area so sensitive and Thomas was burying his face in the crook of his elbow.

          Alexander came off, licking his lips, “Stop doing that--I want to see you.”

          Thomas lowered his arm from his head tensely and continued chewing on his tongue, reaching down to thread his fingers through Alexander’s hair and ripping up harshly on his scalp as the younger man winced, gusts of quick warm air beating against his stiff, wet cock. The one underneath seemed to be enjoying the tiny flares of pain that rocketed through his cranium and his spit, hot and thick on him buzzed as their mouth vibrated with ecstasy. His lower stomach jerked, and as a reflex his fist all of crimson curls tightened and Alexander let out a loud yelp, squeezing his brows together and launching up an arm to grip on his thighs, nail sinking into the flesh of his leg.

          His exhalations coming on in unsteady temperate pants his cranium was inclined far forward to where his chin met his chest, a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his temple, the salt glazing a path down to his neck, along the side, matting edges of his fibers to the corners of his forehead. Growing tighter, Thomas’s hips jerked up and those nails on his thighs dug in deeper, lower stomach lurching, muscles restraining as he felt a release. Squeezing his legs around Alexander’s ears, he met his climax as the heat in the bedroom suffocated him. Alexander, coming off, put a palm over his mouth, confining his lids calmly, swallowing before licking his lips and sucking in an extended breath. Thomas’s knees were weak, his elbows shuddering as they held up his waist and his hands were shaking. He landed himself backwards on the bed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, dragging weighty tips across his lids.

          “Are you alright?”

          For some reason, it arrived as a shock and on shaky earth, raised his head up, chest hovering up and down as he still was regaining his breath. Behind his forehead he gathering up a paper and a quill, pondering in his entire brain of all the possible things he could say in reply; but the paper remained blank and the ink seeped, dripping from the feather's pointed tip and dripping onto the parchment. Nothing could describe such the exact perfection that he was caught in. He was in a bed, the perspiration sticky on his surface drying now from the still frozen air, stripped of his words and feeling so much more alive, naked in his reflections. Time was standing suspended. Panic swelled in his chest again like a pillowing bubble. He’ll admit it, when he propped up on his elbows and reached for the comfort of Alexander’s cheek in the palm of his hand or the aquatic veins of his wrist and searched for anonymity deeper in his eyes and ached for a mutual attraction.

           Thomas Jefferson would admit it.

          He’ll admit that he was shaken when he put an arm around the back of that man’s neck and laid back, startling above him without a smile not sure exactly what he was hoping to discover. Glinted across his orbs, those intense atrocious eyes wide as moon and a galaxy across his skin. He discovered that Alexander was afraid of love. Not just love, he was frightened to love _another_. For Thomas, Alexander with a mysterious name that may not even be his own and his rosy lips that were his favorite sin, that devilish grin on the exterior, but inside there was so much more hidden. He was his most stunning mystery, carrying things sunken inside of him that no one had yet to understand. He was afraid to fall.

          Thomas reached down, his lips brushing Alexander’s, who hesitated to part them and welcome their comfort across his face. Their teeth didn’t collide this time, the taste swapped between the two of ruptured heartbeats that had only learned to love one thing that was gone now like sour rain. They kissed, so much that Alexander’s arms tangled behind his neck and Thomas held them together like plaster with his grip around his rear pushing their chests together sheets tangling around their twisted ankles. Kissing until for an extended era they would have to struggle to learn the buds of something different. Kissing until they could no longer understand the pattern on the day as they became more connected with the pallets of color and the worlds paving each other’s eyelids.

          They lifted off from one another briefly for them both to glare into each other’s faces. Nobody said a word, even if they knew exactly what the other was thinking. They paused and Alexander parted his lips to speak but Thomas quickly quieted him, pouncing to tear another kiss into his rawing bouche, meanwhile, gliding his own hand down Alexander’s breeches, tugging his erect member out of his pants and running a fist up and down the length, pumping as he quieted Alexander’s moans in the caverns of his throat and they rattled against his teeth. Through this all, Alexander’s mouth still tasted like another’s fragrance and it echoed, crawling down his throat. Thomas began to feel small, mismatched sorrow carved itself into the blankets. Alexander withered in his grasp, his breeches tumbling to the floor and now he was just as naked as his counter. Jerking him as it was the ginger’s turn to take control, teeth arriving at places right above where he knew there was a life underneath the skin, beating in triumph and frantically at that.

          When Alexander peaked at his climax, he flattened on the bed, breathing densely and watching through half lidded eyes as Thomas, exasperated tumbled into the pleasure in the sheets, consumed by the pure metaphoric sensations. Alexander’s breathing became shallow again and he revolved, rolling onto Thomas’s forearm his shuddering breath painting his neck and the sweat that had accumulated on both of their skin’s now froze and Alexander shivering in his arms, pulling nearer and sleepily resting his head in the crook of his neck and Thomas almost sniffled because their crimson hair tickling the bottom of his chin. The thick installations subsided, and neither rose to deliver for several moments.

          Ecstasy swirled in the room, dancing in clouds that fumigated through the air, both drinking in the silence like whiskey. “There is nothing more beautiful than the shadow that lives inside me.”, Alexander whispered through tears that edged their way around his eyelids. The shaky vocals vibrated around the room, twisting around the bedposts like vines and Thomas ripped him closer underneath his chin. An aura of moonlight flooding the floor of the room through the windows, lighting up the twilight in a alluring transparency, as if he could see right through the streams of vibrant starlight.

          “Alexander…”, he respired, his lids shutting and his face sinking into the pillow.

          Eyelashes fluttered against his collar, hugging Alexander so close, “Thomas…”

          They soon fell asleep, in the timing moonlight and the sterling rays of shadow. Holding one another so close they memorized each other’s heartbeats for just one night. For just one night they both forgot all that they lost and who that they were destined for. Love was many things for Thomas Jefferson, sometimes he was not sure it existed, but he never doubted it’s power.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:


	4. Chapter Four | Burned in my Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas contemplates everything while Alexander sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we are! The last chapter. I am officially NOT ready for this fic to end. It is funny how I wrote most of this fic while I was visiting the East Coast a month back and I was staying within view of Market Street. In summary, I was writing a fic about events that were taking place on Market Street, Philadelphia, while being at Market Street!
> 
> As usual, you can find me on Tumblr @sonofhistory please do not hesitate to contact me with anything you may need or questions you may have. Comments and kudos are HIGHLY appreciated. 
> 
> Enjoy!

 

 _December 28th_ , 1782 || 4:06 am

____________________

 

          Thomas Jefferson didn’t know the exact time when he reopened his eyes in the morning. Could he even call it morning? He wasn’t able to tell. Early, so very early the horizon was only just shattering to a new fallen dawn in the distance, tucked messily behind the mountains in a knot of serene. He felt stiff, turning over a stark neck, he almost gasped out loud, parting his lips before shutting them again and licking their frozen surface. Alexander was still lying in his arms, he was still sleeping there with his mouth slightly patent and his eyelids twitching. The moon was gone and the light that once illuminated the room was now gone. He was still confused about how vividly those sun-kisses had glowed in the dark, casting a glow across his face.

          The other’s body lay limply on his wrist, he rustled his legs underneath the blankets and cold feet brushed his calf, tangled around them in a thicket of comfort. Thomas turned completely over, meeting Alexander’s dull visage to his own, the tips of their noses rubbing against each other. Their was a smooth palm on his bare breast and it fell back against the bed like a feather when he moved places. He wondered what dreams were playing behind his wandering mind and how thoughtful it must be to be to put him in such a trance like state of unmoving peace. The wind still didn’t rattle against the window pane and the trees didn’t vibrate in the breeze. The world was still for that night, as if the whole world was in tranquility and they would concur it all on their own.

          He knew this was not love. His mind waking him up early in the middle of the eventide only to remind that the best things in his life had never stayed. His head was whispering for him to say goodbye, as it had done before when he lay beside her death bed. But Alexander was not going to pass and nor would he last. Thomas will wake when he shuts his thought again and he’ll still be naked lying among the sheets with only a remembering shadow of who had once slept there beside him. He’ll recall him only as he enshrined her. Laughter on the breeze, shaking the trees that dances like a phantom in and out of the windows. The sunlight will hit water the way it used to hit her eyes, and the moonlight will shimmer a reflection the way it was transformed his own.

          A farewell can roll off of the tongue so easy, cruel and forsaken, how fluid it forms and how lightly it marches off the tongue and how violently it dismantled his heart. Patty had traced her fingers on the undercut of his jaw and mumbled in her weakened state how much she loves that heart in his eyes, and how much she craved his lips and the happiness that they were coated in like gold. She had the time to say her goodbye. He didn’t know which was going to hurt more, waking up to see a beautiful silhouette etching itself out of the room; not a word said but perhaps Alexander will kiss his forehead, contaminating his skin and it would sink into his cranium like disease. They were so unpredictable and wild, unforgettable and he impressed himself forever making his mark.

          Thomas sat up, Alexander’s head shot into the pillow, his arm extended. He slipped out of bed, naked, his bare feet padding against the floor, following the halo of clothing on all three possible sides of the bed. The winter air clung to his skin, frigid and he could still smell the sweat from last night on his body that accumulated around them both like a bond. He treaded, still sleepy and weak to the the nearest window overlooking the streets feeling just a little empty at his core like all his energy had been sucked out. He wanted someone to bring flowers to the gravestones that rose above the grass in his heart. He got to the window, shivers burrowing in his sheath like an itch he disregarded. There was frost edging across each window pane and the shadow of the trees on the sky created the most beautiful illusion of a ghostly interface.

          He breathed softly, steadily, bare in everything and cracking open his skull exposed for everyone to see. The streets were still desolate, and the candle from downstairs had long gone out and he wondered who had extinguished the flame. It was more bright now, and peach cracked the sky, slicing across the horizon, growing darker and darker until it was just as pitch black as the dawn's firmament above. He blinked, soaking in the sight of a million little stars creating a path to the realm, they were kept hidden by a blanket of thickening clouds that settled on the city. Large, pastel puffy clouds that evaporated when touched and tasted like sweet rain on his teeth.

           There wasn’t a single movement from the bed and he cast a forlorn glance towards where Alexander still slept and let a sigh trip past him; it fogged up the glass, winter with his warm breath. She was there, prominent and petrifying in the clouds and she was gathering to fall like snow on the face of the Earth around him--he could never escape her, could he? There was one giant cloud, so large, so silver and if he managed a latter so tall he might find a castle resting on top of it. Stone pillars and startling sunshine, perhaps? Someplace warm. Thomas limbed himself away from the window, pulling his hand off of the frame and stepping back. Turning away from of the revolving heavens; it was catching the isolation on fire and like paper it rained ash from the sky.

_“Please, papa…”_

_That tiny voice with sobs pent up in the back of his throat and tears welling in her voice. It did nothing to stop him, letting strands of greasy ginger hair cling to his forehead and framing his frantic brows, shrouding his vision. Licking his way through the piles of paper surrounding him. In between his fingers, holding apparitions of her handwriting and smudged ink, tossing them into the fire and watching the flames consume the sheets, curling them inward. The flames burnt holes in his eyes, drowning in the tears that contaminated his cheeks and it consumed it all. Smoke dried the edges of his eyes as if wiping his tears with the pain that came with subsidence. The papers were all destroyed, and every letter, everything in her hand had vanished erasing her and her existence. Almost as if she had never really existed_. 

_**They** never existed. _

_Thomas coughed, the smoke filling his lungs. He shuddered at her voice that vibrated in his ear. He brushed away the ghastly hands that tugged on his shoulder as he collapsed on the floor. Surrounded in a circle by everything and anything that reminded him of her. The bed-sheets she had once slept in were ripped, discarded. He came to the bottom of the pile--there was nothing left. There was no paper remaining, there were no memories and yet his heart only hurt more. She shouldn’t be here anymore, she cannot be here anymore when everything of her’s is gone._

**_Head_ ** _: The children are still here._

 **_Heart_ ** _: And he loves them more than the sun longs to kiss the moon each day._

 **_Head_ ** _: A fatal reminder of what he had gained by what he had lost._

 **_Heart_ ** _: You must be such a sad individual to rid of your children just because their faces create all that you once had._

 **_Head_ ** _: The art of life is the art of avoiding pain. This is what I am told._

 **_Heart_ ** _: But the art of pain is like the lesson you receive from touching a hot cooker._

 **_Head_ ** _: That you must be dimwitted._

 **_Heart_ ** _: No, that you learn the consequences of having any trust at all._

 **_Head_ ** _: Then you shouldn’t have trust in any form._

 **_Heart_ ** _: Then you’ll go through life dull and only an vacant shelling of the man you could be._

_Thomas shook his head, removing all reflection. His daughter’s worried voice on the other side of the door and the fire brewing in the hern in front of him as he kneeled on the floor. He tattered everything that reminded him of her or was her. Now his palm brushed a lone paper that had nestled itself between the floorboards, it had tumbled, swirling around the stack that was not burnt and Thomas rose it up to toss it into the fire before he stopped himself. It was a drawing, two shaky, tiny birds pecking at a vine with their thin, inky, little beaks. Tiny two stick feet scribbled in the margins of a paper._

_Tears welled up in the brims of his eyelids. He couldn’t get rid of it all. Would he ever truly be able to forget about her? Forever he would be haunted by a shadow in his own home. He could keep one thing, hide it tucked away. He leaned forward, the paper held against his broken chest, she hadn't just fractured his heart; she tore up every bone in the area. He shattered to the floor again, clenching his legs to his chest and letting the walls consume him in his misery and her ghost danced around the room, watching him from the corner with her snapping temper and biting attitude._

_She had been just perfect._

          Thomas crawled back into his bed, away from the window, away from the clouds and away from her; still feeling the impress of the paper bird stuck to his hollow ribs. He allowed only the light coral distance to ingrain into his memory from the peaceful moment of solitude and remembrance. The harsh maroon glided off the ivory sun of a new found day, placing their home in his spectacles. He tugged the blanket up to the top of his bare collar, tossing himself on his side and wrapping his arm around Alexander’s waist and pushing him closer to where their skin touched. Alexander shuddered, speaking incoherently for a second and rubbing into the crook of his neck even farther.

          “...John?”, his voice murmured and he soon became motionless again, “Ah… Thomas”, he recognized and became an interlude, rolling back into sleep, body growing limp.

          The moonlight that floated across the younger man’s face had faded and the stars that found home in his freckles last night had passed. That starlight replaced by dazzling sun. Fevered, piping sprinkles of tinder spreading across his nose and splattering his cheeks. Thomas found that there were even garnet freckles on his eyelids. Even if his name wasn’t Alexander, and even if he would never see his face again, those fickle freckles were burned in his memory like that ashy paper formulated into his thoughts. If he wakes up and the shorter man is gone, he would be able to recognize him from anywhere by accesories. He would know him by the freckles marking up his cheeks; and the flames scattered across his nose.

          That was all he needed.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any questions of the history or anything (example: the only physical thing we have left in Martha Jefferson hand is a doodle of a bird) please contact me @sonofhistory on Tumblr! COMMENTS ARE HIGHLY APPRECIATED. 
> 
> Thank you, if you made it this far.


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